Posts by kepler

7

Roots and geometries in Revelations

by kepler in

several days ago while driving across town in the car, it came in conversation that the new jerusalem was perfect cube.. also, according to my source, the measure of city's dimension was quite significant of itself.. since beltway traffic was heavy and i was in the midst of exiting to an even more congested side road, i let most of those assertions ride.

but i made a mental note to look up and read the specifics of revelations chapter 21. from previous readings and commentaries, i was already a sceptic about whether john of the gospel was the same author of the epistles and this final book.

if i looked at words and concepts in the gospel and revelations, i am inclined to think that john patmos was a wholly new influence on the course of the overall biblical book: someone accused of a less polished greek, pre-occupied with swords, harlots, the number seven and the the number 12, wings and mouths, codes and symbols for sure.. 21:1 - "then i saw a new heaven and a new earth...".

kepler

Londo111,

This must be a cautionary tale: Here I was, I started on this rant and end up inadvertently deriving the prophetic foot-year principle - very close to my mouth. Reminiscent of the pyramid inch used to track events through the ages, it could be used to determine an arrival past - 1914.

A word of caution, however. Unlike the BC-AD calendar, this system employs a zero. So I'll leave 1914 as a student exercise.

Hint: To the first two decimal places Pi is .14 and 9 is divisible by 3.

---

Transhuman,

I appreciate that account of the Dead Sea scrolls. That is exactly the sort of insight many people would like to get out of them. If you could suggest a good guide or two where such matters are discussed, would be much obliged. I suspect others would appreciate as well.

mP,

Well, I get five objects we would call planets that the ancients could identify: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Did they double book Venus as the Evening and Morning stars back then? And the moon?... Or the sun? I think we are on the same page about ancients placing much stock in numbes such as seven, twelve and forty, but if they were vague about dimensions, they would be vague about rationales as well. Sometimes they actually did have to get specific with building plans, but then all those symbolic numbers show up all over again.

----

7

Roots and geometries in Revelations

by kepler in

several days ago while driving across town in the car, it came in conversation that the new jerusalem was perfect cube.. also, according to my source, the measure of city's dimension was quite significant of itself.. since beltway traffic was heavy and i was in the midst of exiting to an even more congested side road, i let most of those assertions ride.

but i made a mental note to look up and read the specifics of revelations chapter 21. from previous readings and commentaries, i was already a sceptic about whether john of the gospel was the same author of the epistles and this final book.

if i looked at words and concepts in the gospel and revelations, i am inclined to think that john patmos was a wholly new influence on the course of the overall biblical book: someone accused of a less polished greek, pre-occupied with swords, harlots, the number seven and the the number 12, wings and mouths, codes and symbols for sure.. 21:1 - "then i saw a new heaven and a new earth...".

kepler

Several days ago while driving across town in the car, it came in conversation that the New Jerusalem was perfect cube.

Also, according to my source, the measure of city's dimension was quite significant of itself.

Since beltway traffic was heavy and I was in the midst of exiting to an even more congested side road, I let most of those assertions ride. But I made a mental note to look up and read the specifics of Revelations chapter 21. From previous readings and commentaries, I was already a sceptic about whether John of the Gospel was the same author of the epistles and this final book. If I looked at words and concepts in the Gospel and Revelations, I am inclined to think that John Patmos was a wholly new influence on the course of the overall Biblical book: someone accused of a less polished Greek, pre-occupied with swords, harlots, the number seven and the the number 12, wings and mouths, codes and symbols for sure.

21:1 - "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth..."

21: 9- "One of the 7 angels that had the 7 bowls full of the seven final plagues came to speak to me and said, 'Come here and I will show you the bride that Lamb has married... [and] in the spirit he carried me to the top of a very high mountain and showed me Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. ...Its wall was of great heigh and had 12 gates... and over the gates were written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel... and on each of the twelve foundation stones, each one of which bore the name of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.;

21:15 ... "The plan of the the city is perfectly square, its length the same as its breath. He measured the city with his rod and it was 12,000 furlongs [ elsewhere stadii] equal in length and breath, and equal in height."

I think we stop for now right there, lest we start studying the diamond, gold and other jeweled furnishings. Looking at my Greek NT, it appears that the original was measured as 12,000 stadii per side. One conversion I found is 1 stadia = 607 feet.

One modern measure of the nautical mile for astronautical measures is 6076.115484 ft or about ten stadii. It's a little obscure, but consider some other relationships with nautical miles. If the circumference of a spherical ( vs. oblate) based on a radius of 3443.934 nautical miles is 21,638,875... nautical miles, nothing immediately leaps out at you. Why should we have nautical miles at all? But what if we divide that number by 360 to get the number of nautical miles per degree of circular arc? We get 60.1 nautical miles/ degree or pretty close to 60. With stadii we get about 600.

That there is any connection between circumference and the stadia, I do not attribute this to John of Patmos, but rather to Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes. In the third century BC working in Ptolemaic Egypt, he derived a fairly accurate terrestrial circumference by measuring differences in elevation of the sun in Alexandrian and up-river wells, doing additional work in astronomy and geography.

I don't think John of Patmos saw stadii in this context since he describes the descent of a cubical 1200-nmi wide city onto the plains east of the mediterranean sea. Lunar radius for example is 940 nautical miles. As observed from space the New Jerusalem would be nearly as large as the moon with a point of tangency on the revolving earth somewhere around 30 degrees north. This vision would make more sense with a Flat Earth on which a perfect cube could reside like Florida's Vertical Assembly Buildind, built to about 1/12000th scale.

This is described both as the paradise ( garden earth) and the new earth in various discussions we are aware of. Moreover, there is also a connection between the new Jerusalem and an elect of 144,000. In John's account it would appear to be an exclusive of the tribes of Israel - or at least they would have most of the reservations.

Another problem for 144,000 elect is seating or housing.

When you consider this number for a moment with respect to squares or cubes, you discover that the formations needed to attend to housing or seating are non-trivial.

The square root of 144,000 is 379.473 - so I would recommend even - odd seating and a tweak or two. But when you consider that the square of 1200 nmi per side, you get 1,440,000 square miles. That's an elect population density of 0.1 per square mile and 1200 nautical miles of ceiling space.

The cube root of 144,000 is 52.4. So that would mean a need for 52.4 housing units per side.

No, I'm not an expert on these matters, but they do make me lean away from literal interpretations of apocalyptic writings.

3

The Harp Of God, english, spanish editions

by trackregister99 in

can someone post the editions of the harp of god, in spanish and english:.

english:.

1921 first edition.

kepler

TR99 et al.,

Thanks for bringing this up. Went to the site. Quite a library!

Downloading and reviewing, for general information:

The identification of Russell is on page 239 after a long homage by Rutherford to the "wise and faithful servant". In 1921, Rutherford had not yet invented all of his later cultic language. The faithful and discreet slave" was terminology that grew out of his conflict with Olin Moyle in the 1940s. Moyle talked too much in his resignation letter; so a public procedure for celebrity disfellowship had to be invented as well.

Another curiosity is Rutherford's likening of the org to a Great Pyramid on page 239. He cites Isaiah 19:19 as evidence.

?? Gotta go.

24

I had NO idea about the letter to Hitler......

by Flg8ter in

this was brand new to me........did some research, like we're not supposed to do ;) and dug up crazy stuff that i had no idea about.

my whole life we were taught have bad and evil "christendom" was for trying to pacify hiter during his rise to power, and how different we were for standing up to him!.

then i found about the letter dated june 25,1933 from rutherford and his writting team to hiter.

kepler

"It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis was published in 1935. My paperback edition is a 350 page novel about an American implementation of the concepts of Mein Kampf. I am not sure when Sinclair Lewis actually sat down to his typewriter or started to draft his version of what was happening in Germany transferred to America, but I don't think it was instantaneous in 1935 either. His wife Dorothy Thompson was a Berlin correspondent from 1927, interviewed Hitler, wrote a book about it in 1932 ( "I Saw Hitler") and was expelled from the country for it in 1934. Since Lewis also wrote "Elmer Gantry", I can't help thinking he was something of a clairvoyant in these matters. They are almost like companion volumes. Maybe Rutherford should have read "It Can't Happen Here" or Thompson's reporting from Germany sometime when he wasn't writing of, speaking of and profiting from Armageddon talk himself.

3

Luke 24:44, the canon and its distortion

by kepler in

elsewhere on this forum in some wide ranging discussion there was the question of who had originally written the pentateuch and job.

there are some who would say that the first five books of the bible ( and even job) were written by moses; and then over the passage of centuries, more and more arguments were cited for other origins for these books.

perhaps coincidentally i ran across book about mideast archeology ( the ancient city of ebla) which in the course of providing background gave an overview of this and similar biblical controversies.. the authors examined the arguments (pro) for moses having written the penteteuch citing versus in the the ot and nt:.

kepler

Phizzy, mP, Over the years I have picked up several books that discuss Biblical criticism, which is to say that the text is analyzed similar to other ancient writings. The result is that the "literary" theories such as authors J for Yahweh, E for Elohim, D for Deuteronomy, P for priestly and so forth are described and examined. The discussions come from various religious groups ( e.g., Protestant, Jewish, Catholic and not-committed) and the level of support for this theory or others varies. Rendsburg, for example, is sceptical about it himself, but uses it to illustrate very significant features of the Pentateuch. He also ignores others, such as repeted and alternate versions of the same story. But with regard to Josephus and the canon, his 22 books are essentially the books that are accepted in the King James Bible. Some are combined such as Kings, Samuel, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah. And they appear much in the same manner in Hebrew bibles used in Judaism today. It is the so-called Deutero-canonical that appeared in the Septuagint, that are not accounted for by Josephus. These were included for some time in King James publications. And they remain in Catholic bibles to this day, if not in others. An interesting exception is the Book of Enoch. Hardly readable in its full extent and it seems to pass into I, II and III segments like a skipping rock. Where would someone draw the line on something like this that seems to have less and less provenance the more it goes on? But what is significant about the Deutero-canonical is that these books ( and chapters) are ones that shed great light on what is contained in the main text. The devil and eternal life are discussed in the same breath in Wisdom of Solomon. That's the ONLY place in the OT I've seen for sure either or both. It's written in Greek maybe in the 1st century BC in Alexandria by an evidently Hellenic but anonymous Jew and seems to have the qualities that Josephus attributes to the Essenes. He accuses them of importing Greek ideas in Contra Apionem. Yet as far as I know there has been no copy of Wisdom of Solomon recovered from Qumran. Maccabees is the only reference to Daniel in the Old Testament. And as I see it, Daniel is the root of a lot of the difficulties with Christian thought today. A whole lot of people are aware of the misinterpretation of Daniel, but I don't think many are aware of how much has been done to cover it up. Since we don't know who wrote the other four books, it is hard to say that Deuteronomy is actually a fraud. The title just might mean what it says. It could very well have been written by the same group of scribes decades after the original four, assuming these did not have second editions. But I am fairly confident it was discovered in Josiah's reign and influenced his policies toward a purge. He died a zealot facing Egyptian chariots. Yet to the minds of the prophets,the kingdom of Judah had erred and needed to pay for its ways. Go figure?

3

Luke 24:44, the canon and its distortion

by kepler in

elsewhere on this forum in some wide ranging discussion there was the question of who had originally written the pentateuch and job.

there are some who would say that the first five books of the bible ( and even job) were written by moses; and then over the passage of centuries, more and more arguments were cited for other origins for these books.

perhaps coincidentally i ran across book about mideast archeology ( the ancient city of ebla) which in the course of providing background gave an overview of this and similar biblical controversies.. the authors examined the arguments (pro) for moses having written the penteteuch citing versus in the the ot and nt:.

kepler

Elsewhere on this forum in some wide ranging discussion there was the question of who had originally written the Pentateuch and Job. There are some who would say that the first five books of the Bible ( and even Job) were written by Moses; and then over the passage of centuries, more and more arguments were cited for other origins for these books.

Perhaps coincidentally I ran across book about MidEast archeology ( the ancient city of Ebla) which in the course of providing background gave an overview of this and similar Biblical controversies.

The authors examined the arguments (Pro) for Moses having written the Penteteuch citing versus in the the OT and NT:
Malachi 3:22, Nehemiah 8:1 and Luke quoting Christ himself 24:44.

Malachi 3:22 - Remember the Law of my servant Moses to whom I at Horab I prescribed decrees and rulings for all Israel. Nehemiah 8:1 - Now when the 7th month came round - the Israelites being in their towns - all the people gathered and asked the scribe Ezra to bring the Book of the Law of Moses which Yahweh had prescribed for Israel. Luke 24:44 "This is what I meant when I said, while was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms, was destined to be fulfilled." Each of these cases they simply cite "the Law of Moses". Whether Moses wrote the book or it was handed down, I'd say that is left unclear. Now pay close attention to the phrase "the Law of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms".... What is meant here by the Psalms? The title of this book in Hebrew is Mizmor. And in the Hebrew Scriptures, it is the first book of Writings.
Psalms come from the Greek psalmas. What's my point? Josephus and Jesus were speaking of scriptures in the same manner! Aside from what Luke conveys here about Christ fulfilling the Scriptures, Christ in this text from Luke also reveals how scriptures are supposed to be structured. And Daniel was part of Writings, not Prophets. An early, clear conception of the Canon meets us in the pages of the Jewish historian Josephus. In his Contra Apionem (I. 38-43), written to establish the antiquity of the Jews and the trustworthiness of their history, he wrote,

‘We have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another; but only 22 books, which contain the records of all past times and which are rightly believed in. And of these, five belong to Moses, which contain the laws and the tradition of the origin of mankind till his death for a period of 3,000 years. From the death of Moses until the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes ( or Ahasuerus), the prophets who came after Moses wrote down the things that were done in their times in 13 books.

"The remaining books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life.’ …

That would be Psalms, Proverbs and other books which are indicated in Hebrew Scriptures to this day. In other words:

In the Hebrew Bible these books are divided into three divisions: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.

The Law comprises the five books of Moses. In the ‘Prophets’ are included the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings (the ‘Former Prophets’) as well as the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah. Ezekiel and the ‘Minor’ Prophets (the ‘Latter Prophets’).

The ‘Writings’contain under three subdivisions:

1. Psalms, Proverbs and Job;

2. a group of five books called the ‘Five Scrolls’, Canticles, Ruth. Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther;

3. the books of Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

There are two issues to be addressed here about scriptures: when they were written and when they became part of the canon of which Josephus and others speak. One trial balloon for the canonization is provided by Professor Gary Rendsburg as follows:

Formation of the Canon

c. 450 B.C.E. .................................................Books of the Torah become Jewish canon.

c. 250 B.C.E...................................................Books of the Prophets enter Jewish canon.

c. 100-150 C.E................................................Books of the Writings (e.g., Psalms, Proverbs) enter Jewish canon.

c. 200-700 C.E................................................Christian canon formed, by different churches in the Near East and the Mediterranean, by accepting the books of the Jewish Bible, the books of the Apocrypha, and the New Testament as Scripture.

Of course, Rendsburg’s schedule does not take into account Christ’s New Testament input into the discussion, which would give Writings an earlier date, but Rendsburg gives a significant distinction between the older segments of the OT and the newer ones: words borrowed by the Hebrew writers.

Despite disputes about Pentateuch authorship addressed by J, E, P, D and other source writers, the text is in a classical Hebrew. Even up to destruction of the Temple, no borrowed words or other languages. Daniel alternates between Aramaic, Hebrew as well as 3rd and 1st tense with plenty of borrowed words (e.g. satrapies from the Persians applied to Babylonian government) and the actual monarcs that he supposedly served seem to come to him in a vague fog or are just plain false.

But for purposes that are largely a matter of conjecture, Daniel is elevated to the level of a prophet. Written evidence to the contrary is buried or obscured. To cover the traces of this with translations such as Psalms for "Writings" in Luke and "Psalms" for Mizmor at Psalms, the structure of the Old Testament as seen by those living in Christ's time is obscured in behalf of apocalyptic proponents' beliefs.

So, about those 2500 years or days...

39

Josephus in "the Jewish War" remarks on the nature of eternal life

by kepler in

there is a corresponding topic on science and the immortal soul that reminded me of something that i had encountered in the 7th chapter of josephus's history of the roman campaigns in judea, "the jewish war".

one version of this is available in penguin classics, for example.

"among the jews are three schools of thought, whose adherents are called pharisees, sadducees and essenes respectively...".

kepler

Hannes, Rather than simply resigning myself to disagreeing with you, I thought further about the matter as I was reading some related material. In a book about MidEast archeology (Ebla) I ran into a discussion of similar Biblical controversies. The authors examined the arguments (Pro) for Moses having written the Penteteuch citing versus in the the OT and NT: Malachi 3:33, Nehemiah 8:1 and Luke quoting Christ himself 24:44. Each of these cases they simply cite "the Law of Moses". Now pay close attention to what Christ says in Luke, he speaks of the Law of Moses, the Prophets and Psalms.... What is meant here by the psalms? The title of this book in Hebrew is Mizmor. It is the first book of Writings. Psalms come from the Greek psalmas. What's my point. Josephus and Jesus were speaking of scriptures in the same manner! Aside from what Luke conveys here about Christ fulfilling the Scriptures, he has also revealed how they are supposed to be structured. And Daniel was part of Writings, not Prophets. I intend to discuss this further elsewhere. Hence, much of what has been done with the structure of the Bible by Christian groups has been to subordinate the Bible to objectives of their own.

39

Josephus in "the Jewish War" remarks on the nature of eternal life

by kepler in

there is a corresponding topic on science and the immortal soul that reminded me of something that i had encountered in the 7th chapter of josephus's history of the roman campaigns in judea, "the jewish war".

one version of this is available in penguin classics, for example.

"among the jews are three schools of thought, whose adherents are called pharisees, sadducees and essenes respectively...".

kepler

Hannes, The example you cite is one which I have trouble with and have written about considerably on this forum. Where to start on this one? Daniel seems to have a good eye for what is going on during the 160s BC and leading up to it. What the book "predicts" after that is contentious. But the book raises more questions than answers about the period in which it was supposedly written. Almost all references to kings, regents and princes are either dead wrong or full of anachronisms. Descriptions of Dariuses could be Darius I or Darius II, but "Darius the Mede"? If you have a copy of a Bible with chapter 14 of Daniel, note that it starts as follows: "When King Astyages joined his ancestors, Cyrus of Persia succeeded him." Bingo. There was no Darius the Mede by the time you get to the end of Daniel! "Daniel was very close to the king, who respected him more than any of his friends." These lines appear in the Septuagint and not in the Masoretic text, and the story that follows relies on less miracle and more detective work than any that preceded. Why it should not make the cut, while many Septuagint verses do, since that is what the Gospel writers referred their readers to, is something of a recent phenomenon. For centuries the deutero-canonical material was included in the King James as well as the Catholic bibles. But what this chapter does is undercut a lot of what precedes it. As I said elsewhere, read a fairly close translation of Thucydides and you will find that the Greeks claim they won the Battle of Marathon against the Medes. The year was 486 BC. Who was their king? Herodotus was even more explicit. He calls Xerxes "king of the Medes in book 9 of the histories. It is not that Darius does not exist in history. The author of Daniel got his ancient history from the Seleccid greeks and he got it half digested. He screws up all over the place. The Hebrew Bible never said that he was a prophet and the only place in the Septuagint where he was mentioed was in Maccabees. Catastrophes heaped on the world such as the 607 BC and 2500 years are the result of Apocalyptic Christians promoting Daniel to a level he was seen at originally and recognized already by many as a late addition to the canon. In Chapter 9, his testimony,even if true, violates the criteria for being a prophet as defined by Josephus in Contra Apion. He cries out there that his people remain in bondage in Babylon, but they had been given permission to leave decades ago.

27

Beside reading Thucydides the author of Daniel read Herodotus

by kepler in

over a year ago, i engaged in a discussion on a similar topic.

it was titled, "has anyone read thucydides beside the author of daniel?".

since my annotated new jerusalem bible mentions a number of reasons why the text was probably written largely in the 2nd century bce to address events happening in that period ( the seleucid occupation and desecration of the temple), i was aware of a number of arguments for the case.

kepler

Some updates on this matter based on reading two books.

1. "Persian Fire" by Tom Holland, written in 2006 is a digestible recapitulation of the Persian Wars with the Greek city states in the 480s and 470s BC. Holland re-arranges the account of Herodotus to allow other connections to be made. I have not checked all of them, but I think he ran aground on an important one: the relationship of Astyages King of Media, Cyrus the future king of Persia, lieutenants of both individuals - and the subsequent King Darius I.

In book one of the Histories, Herodotus relates how Astyages, inspired by a dream directs Harpargos to murder the young prince Cyrus. Regarding the dream, Astyages had consulted magi on this matter.Harpagos, having failed in that, Astyages kidnaps his son, butchers him and serves him in a stew to his father. Harpargos continued to serve Astyages but stewed as well in his own anger. He worked tirelessly in behalf of Cyrus and confronted Astyages after Cyrus captured him in the field of battle. Subsequently he served Cyrus as a general in campaigns through Asia Minor.

In Herodotus, I can find no indication that Harpagos changed his name to Hystapes and became the father of Darius. Whether this is an error of Holland's, a pet theory or the tale of another ancient writer, I cannot say. But I certainly cannot find evidence to support this theory.

2.) "Ebla" right now appears to be the more interesting of the two books, though it might not be appropriately named. Archeologists and scholars of ancient Jewish life, Chaim Bermant and Michael Weitzman collaborate here, describing Italian work on Tell Mardikh in Syria near Aleppo and the background surrounding it. Ebla is rich in ancient cuneiform, best described for now as Proto-Canaanite from the 3rd millenium BC. Somewhat like the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ebla created excitement and anticipation for the public, especially with regard to the Pentateuch and possible connections to this hardly known city ( a few brief references in the OT). The third chapter of the book gives a broad 25 page survey of Biblical controversies over presumed anachronisms, sources such as J, E, P and D, the tribal heritages, contradictions, etc. Arguments posted are pro and con for "inerrancy" for lack of better term.

The fourth chapter was devoted to "Cuneiform without Tears" - and this is an exciting history of how the codes were cracked, starting with ancient Persian, largely off the testimony of Darius I in Behistun, Iran.

Rawlinson, a British army attache to the Persian government, cracked the code by comparing the genealogy provided by Herodotus, another tablet with a suspected list of kings ( Darius, Xerxes, king, king of kings, Persia... etc.). We finally get in English translation "Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian..."

Herodotus and Darius appear to be in agreement about both who his father was. Both Herodotus and Thucydides identify Medes as the invaders of Greece in 486 BC and Darius was king. Herodotus, as said above, calls out Xerxes as king of the Medes.

Now try to get Daniel to match like that with anything - save for predicting a perpetually receding event.

39

Josephus in "the Jewish War" remarks on the nature of eternal life

by kepler in

there is a corresponding topic on science and the immortal soul that reminded me of something that i had encountered in the 7th chapter of josephus's history of the roman campaigns in judea, "the jewish war".

one version of this is available in penguin classics, for example.

"among the jews are three schools of thought, whose adherents are called pharisees, sadducees and essenes respectively...".

kepler

Well, I've got some answers of my own. They are Old Testament, but Deutero-Canonical.

It depends on how you regar"Wisdom". or Wisdom of Solomon, an Alexandrian composition probably predating Philo and drawing from Septuagint texts.

From Chapter 2:

There is a discussion of life as the godless see it and how the believer should be tested and put to torture to see if God will intervene. In answer:

23. For God created human beings to be immortal, he made them as an image of his own nature, Death came into the world only through the Devil's envy, as those who belong to him find to their own cost.

From Chapter 3:

1. But the souls of the upright are in the hands of God, and no torment can touch them.

2. To the unenlightened they appear to die, their departure was regarded as a disaster,

3. their leaving us like an annihilation, but they are at peace.

4. If, as it seemed to us, they suffered punishment, their hope was rich with immortality. slight was their correction, great will their blessings be.

God was putting them to the test and has proved them worthy to be with him; he has tested them like gold in a furnace and accepted them as a pefect burnt offering.

...

10. But the godless will be duly punished for their punished for their reasoning ...

--------------------

I open the floor to comments on this one. But it looks to me like the Deutero-Canonical explains New Testament concepts better than the canonical Old Testament. This is an Alexandrian/Hellenic/Jewish outlook not far afield from that of Paul and perhaps one or two of the Gospel writers. It also puts the description of Josephus of the Essenes in perspective.